The Trauma of Birth

sigje
sigje
Jul 24, 2017 · 6 min read

“Tell us if you feel it on the left, center, or right of your back.”

I’m sitting hunched over the side of the bed, waiting for the epidural to make its way into my body. I don’t know what the needle looks like as they refuse to show it to me prior to their efforts. I’ve documented other parts of this journey, but apparently this particular needle is just too much.

I’m to “joking” levels of stress, fear and pain. On my hierarchy, this is level 2. Experiencing a near constant level of some kind of stress, fear or pain over years and not wanting to be a downer, I’ve developed some coping strategies that disguise my emotional/physical state.

Level 1 — Uncontrollable laughter

Level 2 — Joking

Level 3 — Silent tears

Level 4 — Anger

My body feels like a tense wire, I’ve gone up and down through the stages a few times now and I’m still reeling from earlier misadventures. This feels like the promise of relief and if I can only get through this last hurdle everything will feel much better.

I can’t stop my body’s reactions and my back is tense. I start to shake. This is a teaching hospital, so one anesthesiologist is talking the other anesthesiologist through the procedure. She’s telling him that going fast isn’t better than slow and steady and I keep thinking about the tortoise and the hare and I try not to let the giggle out, but it slips out.

I try to talk about all the things that I’m going to do when the baby is out, mostly things that revolve around food and beverages because I can’t think about the baby without stressing out. Is he ok? So I talk about turkey (because Thanksgiving), and sashimi (because raw fish).

The epidural insertion starts out feeling ok, though my positioning hurts to maintain. Poke. Poke. Poke. With each poke, I feel a little pinch and I emit a word “left”, “right” or “center”. They say “Almost done” and I feel relief, and then my back is on fire, with the nerves down my leg screaming and I’m screaming. I’m trying not to move more than I already have and I can only say the word “Fire”.

This repeats 2 more times, and on the last go I let out a torrent of words. It’s been over 2 and a half hours since they started trying to put the epidural in, and I can’t take it anymore. “Stop saying is it electric, it’s FIRE. An electrical tingle might be nice, but it does not describe my experience. My back and legs are on fire.”

In this moment, the lead doctor realizes some important information.

She calls a 15 minute break explaining that I should eat some food, go to the restroom one more time. I hadn’t had any food for over 8 hours at this point as the kitchen had already gotten the word that I was barred from any solids and most liquids. My partner had some chocolate and a sandwich though, and I scarfed it down with milk. Moving around helped loosen up my back and hips. I hug my partner and let sliver of my emotions free as tears course down my cheeks silently into his shirt.

I sit back on the bed, and the doctor returns. She pats my arm, and we talk about our misunderstanding. Our words and meaning were not in alignment. My joking manner is disguising my stress levels. “Electric” to her is a signal of bad, “electric” to me is so far below what I’m experiencing. “Fire” to her is a signal that it hurts but that it is localized to one area. “Fire” to me is a measure of the intensity and that the entire nerve has been ignited . She proposes a new course of action: She’d give me some Versed, we’d wait 15 minutes and then she’d put the epidural in.

The Versed is blessed relief. My body relaxes. After almost 2 days of labor, I’m ready for some real sleep and I could almost sleep now. Instead of bending over while sitting on the edge, they have me lean into some pillows on the bed tray. 15 minutes later and the epidural is in, and I’m laying down explaining how incredibly awesome the Versed is. I asked if they could use the Versed when they insert the catheter in (a requirement once getting the epidural) as well as the next cervix check.

The anesthesiologist is my new best friend, and I tell her this over and over again sprinkled with crying “I love yous”. The epidural works exactly as described. I am free from back and leg pain for the first time in years, and I can use my muscles. I test this out wiggling my toes, doing circles with my feet, and doing back bridges that I hold for a few minutes at a time.

This was the first time in this labor that I felt I was having an interaction where although my expectations and communication were at odds with a caregiver that the understanding and meaning was repaired.

Every individual experiences pregnancy, and the labor process differently which I think makes it somewhat hard to describe what the experience is like.

Yet, we don’t do a good job of preparing folks for the myriad of changes and experiences and in the moments that we need to communicate with our caregivers and make informed choices we are denied those choices.

For me, the trauma of birth was less about the pain of labor, and more the failure to repair understanding over and over leading to greater feelings of isolation and pain. A couple of examples of this:

  • Use of “uncomfortable exam” to describe the invasive insertion of fingers into your vagina and pressed up against your cervix to feel for its softness and state of opening. This process can be incredibly painful, more so if you are not prepared for the invasion and tense up.
  • Use of “more intensive uncomfortable exam” to describe the insertion of the cervidil, which actually felt to me like someone shoving a knife up inside of me. This was one of the points where I completely lost it and told folks that they needed to prepare folks better, because especially for folks who have experienced sexual trauma this was intense. For me, I felt raped.
Cervidil is a deceptively painful insertion process for some!

As I have time, I’m going to write about some of the missed opportunities to repair understanding in the process with the goal that it helps prepare someone for their own experiences with pregnancy (and maybe helps some future doctors/nurses in their experiences with repairing understanding with their patients!).

To me, it’s important that folks have the opportunity to make informed choices from the beginning of the process of pregnancy all the way throughout. I don’t know all the choices, or potential experiences. I only have my own story to share, and so I will share it with the hope that it helps inform choice.

If I had to choose again based on what I know now, there are steps where I would have made different choices, but I definitely would choose Frankie. Some would say “a healthy baby” is the best outcome and Frankie being healthy is obviously a win. The mental and emotional health of the new parents is important as well, and denying this with a “but healthy baby” is not helpful.

I choose Frankie.

sigje

Written by

sigje

Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft

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